"The lizard, with his shadow on the stone,
Rests like a shadow, and the cicala sleeps,
The purple flowers droop."
At Gibraltar the new acquaintances parted, and Mr Stanforth and his
daughter went at once to join their friends at San Jose, with many hopes
expressed of soon meeting at Seville; whither Cheriton, unwilling to
detain Alvar from his friends, wished to go immediately. Mr
Stanforth's holiday was not an idle one. Every walk he took, every
change of light and shade was a feast of new colour and form for him, to
be perpetuated by sketches more or less elaborate, and the enjoyment of
which was intense. But the pair of dissimilar brothers had afforded him
interest of another kind, and it was with real pleasure that he thought
of a renewal of the intercourse with them, which came about sooner than
he had expected.
His friends, the Westons, were a brother and two sisters, lively people
approaching middle age. Mr Weston had a government appointment in
Gibraltar, and his sisters lived with him. They were enterprising,
cultivated women, and very fond of Gipsy Stanforth; who possessed that
power of quick sympathetic interest which of all things makes a
delightful companion. She was always finding "bits" and "effects" for
her father, or suggesting subjects for his pencil; and she was almost
equally pleased to hunt for flowers for the botanical Miss Weston, and
to look out words in the dictionary for the literary one, who was
translating a set of Spanish tales.
_A propos_ of these, she related with much interest their acquaintance
on board ship, describing the two Lesters with a _naivete_ that amused
her friends, and prompted Miss Weston to say,--
"You seem to have been very fortunate in your travelling companions,
Gipsy."
"Yes, we were. And it will be such an advantage to know a native family
at Seville. That sounds as if they were heathens; but I declare that
_is_ Don Alvar, buying oranges! Oh, I am so glad to see you! So you
have come here after all."
"Yes. Cheriton was so ill at Gibraltar that it was plain that he could
not bear the journey to Seville. It is cooler here, and he is a little
better; but he can do nothing yet, and I am very unhappy. I do not know
what to write to my father about him."
"Oh, I am sorry," said Gipsy warmly. "He seemed better on board. And
this place is so lovely."
"Yes," said Alvar simply. "I could feel as if I was in heaven in the
sunshine, and when I hear the voices of my home; but when he suffers, it
darkens all. But I must go back to him."
"Papa will come and see you," said Gipsy; "and this is Miss Weston, with
whom we are staying. Good-bye. I think your brother will be better
when he has had a rest."
Gipsy's cheerful sympathy brightened Alvar, who had expected that
Spanish sunshine would make a miraculous cure; but Cherry's cough had
been worse since they came on shore, and his spirits had failed
unaccountably just when Alvar had expected him to recover them.
Alvar had all along declared that it would be better to go by a Cadiz
packet and thence by rail to Seville; but Mr Lester believed in
Peninsular and Oriental steamers, and in the English doctors and hotels
of Gibraltar. But there the heat and glare were hateful to Cheriton,
the servant they had brought proved more of a hindrance than a help, and
Alvar thought himself fortunate in obtaining leave from some Gibraltar
acquaintances to use their house at San Jose for a month, after which
Cheriton might be better able to encounter the strangers whom he really
dreaded more than the travelling. Certainly if change was what Cherry
had needed he had obtained it thoroughly. Nothing could well have been
more unlike Oakby than San Jose, and when Cheriton had had a little
rest, had been teased by Mr Stanforth for comparing the marble-paved
_patio_ of the house to the Alhambra at the Crystal Palace, and, moved
by the fortunate sympathy that had enabled him to "take a fancy" to the
kindly artist, had confided to him that he was very homesick, and longed
for Jack, though he did not like Alvar to know it, he brightened up and
grew rather stronger. He was soon able to sit on the beach and try to
learn Spanish, insisting on understanding the construction of the
language, and asking questions sometimes rather puzzling to his tutor;
while Gipsy set up a rivalry with him as to the number of words and
phrases to be acquired in a day, in which she generally beat him hollow.
Nor had he any real want of appreciation of the new and beautiful world
around him, and Mr Stanforth helped him to enjoy it. Life would be
very dull but for the involuntary inclinations to acquaintance and
friendship that brighten its ordinary course, and "fancies" are more
often things to be thankful for than to put aside. This one roused
Cheriton from the dulness that accompanies sorrow and sickness, and
enabled him to turn at any rate the surface of his mind to fresh
interests.
Mr Stanforth, on the other hand, whose sympathy had been quickened by
the practice of a most kindly life, found much to interest him in the
bright, tender nature, evidently struggling under so heavy a cloud, and
did not wonder at the affection with which the young man was obviously
regarded--an affection made pathetic by the sad possibilities that were
but too apparent.
Gipsy was on very friendly terms with both the brothers, and was a new
specimen of girlhood for them. She was quite as clever and as well
educated as either Ruth or Virginia, and had been in the habit of living
with much more widely cultivated people--people who talked, and had
something to talk about, so that she had a great deal to say; while
there was a quaint matter-of-factness about her too, and she talked art
as simply as she would have talked dress; and while she was very much
interested in the two young men, she never troubled herself at all about
her relations towards them. She scolded Cherry for walking too far, and
discoursed on the suitability of his appearance for artistic purposes
with equal simplicity; fetched and carried for him, and triumphed over
his deficiencies in Spanish. She received Alvar's courtesies and
compliments with the greatest delight, and proceeded to return them in
kind, till she actually rendered him almost free and easy, and he talked
so much of her that Cheriton grew half-frightened, unknowing that his
own remark, that he wished Nettie could know so nice a girl as Miss
Stanforth, had inspired Alvar with the notion that Ruth might find a
successor in La Zingara, as he called her. But Gipsy was perfectly
unconscious, and was moreover carefully watched over by her father and
her friends. By the end of the month Cheriton was able to undertake the
journey to Seville, and the Stanforths proposed to start at the same
time, but to go by a different route, which enabled them to see more of
the country.
"But," said Gipsy, one evening when they were all together on the beach,
"we _must_ get to Seville in time for a bull-fight, and Don Alvar says
there are none in the winter."
"But, Miss Stanforth," said Cherry, "_you_ surely would not go to a
bull-fight?"
"Wouldn't you?" said Gipsy mischievously.
"Well, yes--for once I think I should."
"You would not like it, Cherito," said Alvar.
"Don't you?" echoed Cherry, with a glance at Gipsy.
"Oh, yes; it is grand! When the bull makes a rush one holds the breath,
and then--it is a shout!"
"I suppose it is a wonderful spectacle," said Mr Stanforth. "I hope to
have a chance, but I think Gipsy will have to take it on trust."
"Jack desired me not to encourage them," said Cherry, "but I must own to
a great curiosity about it."
"But I shall not let you go," said Alvar; "it would tire you far too
much; and besides you are too tender-hearted. My brothers," he added to
Mr Stanforth, "cannot bear to see anything hurt, unless they hurt it
themselves; then they do not mind."
"Of course," said Cherry, "there is an essential difference between
incurring danger, or at least fatigue and exertion yourself, and sitting
by to see other people incur it. I have no doubt it is a barbarous sort
of thing, and there is something dreadful in the idea of a lady being
present at it; but it would be stupid, I think, to come away without
seeing anything so characteristic."
"The Spanish ladies do not mind it, nor I," said Alvar, "any more than
you mind killing your foxes, or your fish; but it is different for
foreigners. They do not like to see the horses, though they are mostly
worthless ones, torn in pieces. You would be ill, _querido_, you might
faint."
"Nonsense," said Cherry. "I might hate it, but I should not be so soft
as that."
"You do not know," said Alvar, evidently not disposed to yield. "Some
day," with a glance at Gipsy, "I will tell you. You shot the old horse
yourself for fear the coachman should hurt him--but it made you cry; and
if a dog whines it grieves you."
"Old Star that I learnt to ride on!" said Cherry indignantly. "What has
that to do with it?"
"And besides," resumed Alvar, perhaps a little wickedly, "bull-fights
are usually on Sunday, and are quite as bad as billiards or the guitar,
which you say in England are wrong."
"These are frightful imputations on you, Cheriton," said Mr Stanforth:
"a tender heart and too strict a sense of duty. No wonder you are
obstinate. But if what I have read be true, a bull-fight is a hard pull
on our insular nerves sometimes, and I doubt if you are in condition for
one."
"I don't want to see a bull-ring at Oakby," said Cherry; "but Alvar is
mistaken if he thinks I should mind it more than other people do. There
is enough of a sporting element, I suppose, to keep one from dwelling on
the details."
"I see, Mr Lester," said Gipsy, "that you don't believe in the rights
of women."
"No, Miss Stanforth, I certainly don't. I believe in my right to
protect them from what is unpleasant."
"But not to give them their own way! Papa, don't look at me like that.
_I_ don't want to go and see horses killed on a Sunday, if Mr Lester
does. But a bull-fight--the national sport of Spain--and the matadors
who are so courageous--ah! it makes such a difference the way things are
put."
"You must learn to look at the essentials, my dear. But now shall we
have a last stroll to the point to see the sunset?"
"You need not tell Granny if I _do go_ to the bull-fight," whispered
Cherry, as Alvar helped him up, and gave him his arm across the rough
shingles.